The matter of anticolonial history: remembering Indonesian resistance to Dutch empire in the age of Black Lives Matter

Abstract

Caused by growing concerns over the legacies of the Dutch colonial past as well as the global rise in support for the Black Lives Matter movement, the imperial history of the Netherlands has come under growing public scrutiny. One of the results of this renewed critical stance towards Dutch colonialism is the attention being devoted to the resistance and revolt once undertaken by colonized peoples in the Dutch colonial and postcolonial world.

Part of this renewed focus lies on modern anticolonial and antiracist figures, of which the Surinamese writer and activist Anton de Kom (1898-1945) is one of the most prominent examples. Within the span of a year, De Kom has not only been added to the national historical canon of the Netherlands but the Dutch government also promised to make amends concerning the maltreatment of the De Kom by colonial authorities. Additionally, grassroots organization are now pushing for a second statue of De Kom – after another one has already been erected in Amsterdam – in The Hague, the place where De Kom lived and worked.

This paper makes use of the framework of Michael Rothberg’s multidirectional memory. It thereby focusses on different ‘mnemonic communities’ surrounding Dutch colonial history and their focus (or lack thereof) on modern anticolonial figureheads. It argues that the inclusion of South East Asian anticolonial history within a postcolonial memory culture of the Netherlands is vital in coming to terms with the Dutch imperial history as a whole.